Re: beam classes: repairing; armour

Brendan wrote:

> Armour is useful for delaying that first threshold check, but the
next
> threshold hits quickly.  Also, ships with armour only have about
5-10% 
> mass (any more than this isn't efficient against armour piercing >
weapons).

Well, it still delays your first treshold check(s) by a fair number of
points <g> Still, having more than half as much armour as hull boxes
isn't a very good idea - if hit by armour-piercing weapons (only)
you're guaranteed to take the first treshold check before running out
of armour, and a Teske field could ruin your day as well. (It would
anyway, of course <g>)

> Sometimes this mass is of more benefit to buy screens or a larger
hull.  

In the case of a "larger" (I assume you mean "stronger" rather than
"higher total Mass"?), it is usually better to have a hull one level
weaker + 10% armour than to have the stronger hull but no armour. The
only real exception to this is that an unarmoured Weak hull is slightly
better than a Fragile hull with 10% armour, due to re-rolls and
armour-piercing weapons.

As for screens, well - all armour-piercing weapons in the game so far
ignore screens completely... if the enemy can inflict more than 1/3 the
raw damage (ie, before screens) you suffer with armour-piercing
weapons, your screens were a waste of points and Mass; you'd've been
better off with armour or more weapons.

> The benefit of a larger hull, is that you space out both the damage 
> between threshold checks, and you don't lose crew as fast, which 
> becomes important when you need to repair damage.

Not true IMO. On average, the armoured ship has more weapons working
after suffering the same amount of damage than the unarmoured one,
because it doesn't start taking treshold checks as early. Not having to
repair systems is IMO preferrable to having slightly longer time to
repair them once they are lost :-/

Later,

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry